The Life of the Fly 



bonized by time. The three-pronged fork, 

 therefore, the only implement of husbandry 

 that can penetrate such a soil as this, has en- 

 tered here; and I am sorry, for the primi- 

 tive vegetation has disappeared. No more 

 thyme, no more lavender, no more clumps of 

 kermes-oak, the dwarf oak that forms forests 

 across which we step by lengthening our stride 

 a little. As these plants, especially the first 

 two, might be of use to me by offering the 

 Bees and Wasps a spoil to forage, I am com- 

 pelled to reinstate them in the ground whence 

 they were driven by the fork. 



What abounds without my mediation is the 

 invaders of any soil that is first dug up and 

 then left for a long time to its own resources. 

 We have, in the first rank, the couch-grass, 

 that execrable weed which three years of stub- 

 born warfare have not succeeded in exterminat- 

 ing. Next, in respect of number, come the cen- 

 tauries, grim-looking one and all, bristling 

 with prickles or starry halberds. They are the 

 yellow-flowered centaury, the mountain cen- 

 taury, the star-thistle and the rough centaury: 

 the first predominates. Here and there, amid 

 their inextricable confusion, stands, like a 

 chandelier with spreading, orange flowers 

 for lights, the fierce Spanish oyster-plant, 



16 



